On Thursday, February 28th, DifferenceMaker held its final workshop series session! This was a four-part series designed to help student teams gain knowledge to help them move their project forward for the Rist $50,000 Idea Challenge. The theme of this evening was developing your rocket pitch.

The evening started off with dinner, refreshments, and networking. Shortly after, Ha Pho, Entrepreneurial Initiatives Project Manager, opened the session with reminders of deadlines coming up and recaps of all the previous sessions. She then introduced our guest speaker for the evening: Professor ‪Mike Ciuchta, Manning School of Business.

After the introductions, Professor Ciuchta presented about how to develop a rocket pitch that will engage the audience and judges. He showed examples of previous team pitches’ along with the power point presentations that teams used in the past.

He then opened a discussion to the attendees. What were the teams’ strongest aspects of their pitches? Is there anything that they could’ve improved on? Everything that he presented helped teams think deeply about the way they plan to pitch: how will they pitch in a way that will help people understand the problems they are trying to solve, while keeping in mind that they will have five minutes on the stage to do so? Every second counts!

Students then broke off into their teams and worked on their rocket pitches. Faculty fellows and guest speakers David Vatalaro, Ha Pho, and Mike Ciuchta walked around and gave each team feedback about how they could improve their pitches even further.

Then, students pitched their projects and got live feedback about the parts that were well done and what parts needs improvement. This was a useful practice test before pitching in front of the judges at the Preliminary Pitch-off and $50,000 Idea Challenge!

We would like to thank everyone that attended the third workshop series session! Another huge thank you to guest speaker Mike Ciuchta for leading this session!

Don’t forget to also keep working hard to prepare for the $50,000 Idea Challenge! Some important dates coming up:

• March 2, Idea Plan Due by 5 p.m.
• March 16, Semi-finalists announced by email and social media
• March 27, Revised Idea Plan, Rocket Pitch Presentation, and Poster Due by 5 p.m.
• April 7, Preliminary Pitch-off
• April 15, 2020 DifferenceMaker Idea Challenge Finals!

On Monday, February 24th, DifferenceMaker held its third workshop series session! This is a four-part series designed to help student teams gain knowledge to help them move their project forward for the Rist $50,000 Idea Challenge. The theme of this evening was developing business models.

The evening started off with dinner, refreshments, and networking. Shortly after, Holly Butler, Entrepreneurial Initiatives Project Director, gave an introduction and reminders for important deadlines. She then introduced our two guest speakers for the evening: Professor Tom O’Donnell, UMass Lowell Innovation Hub, and Professor Hunter Mack, Francis College of Engineering.

After the introductions, Professor Tom O’Donnell presented about the importance of a structured business model. A business model contains many factors – factors such as customer relationships, value propositions, revenue streams, and more. All these factors combined will equal a structured business model, which organizes all these factors in one and helps teams illustrate their potential trade-offs.

Students broke into their teams to further develop their project and business models. Faculty fellows and guest speakers David Vatalaro, Hunter Mack, and Tom O’Donnell walked around and gave each team feedback and advice to make their business model well rounded.

We would like to thank everyone that attended the third workshop series session! Another huge thank you to our guest speakers who led the session! We look forward to seeing you at our last session:

Workshop Series 4: Delivering Your Rocket Pitch, February 27

Dinner is served at each workshop, so please come hungry! Don’t forget to also keep working hard to prepare for the $50,000 Idea Challenge!

On Thursday, February 21st, DifferenceMaker held its second workshop series session! This is a four-part series designed to help student teams gain knowledge to help them move their project forward for the Rist $50,000 Idea Challenge. The theme of this evening was assessing opportunities and value propositions.

The evening started off with dinner, refreshments, and networking. Shortly after, Ha Pho, Entrepreneurial Initiatives Project Manager, gave an introduction and recap about the previous session, which was about identifying problems. She then introduced our two guest speakers for the evening: Faculty Fellows, Professor Brent Shell, Zuckerberg College of Health Sciences, and Professor Neil Shortland, College of Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.

After the introductions, Professor Brent Shell presented about assessing opportunities. This allowed teams to think about their problems even further and think about whether their solutions may have a potential market segment. Then, student teams worked with each other to discuss what they learned with their own projects and presented to all attendees.

After the presentations, Professor Neil Shortland taught the teams about value propositions. This allowed teams to think about the value their projects will provide for consumers: will it provide the consumers enough value to make them want to buy it? He taught about the psychology of human nature, which is important. Although each project may seem amazing to the team who created it, it may not be the case for future potential customers. Therefore, it is important to talk to potential customers.

We would like to thank everyone that attended the second workshop series session! Another huge thank you to our guest speakers who led the session! We look forward to seeing you at our next sessions: \

Workshop Series 3: Developing Business Models, February 24

Workshop Series 4: Delivering Your Rocket Pitch, February 27

Dinner is served at each workshop, so please come hungry! Don’t forget to also keep working hard to prepare for the $50,000 Idea Challenge!

On Tuesday, February 19th, DifferenceMaker held its first workshop series session! This is a four-part series designed to help student teams gain knowledge to help them move their project forward for the Rist $50,000 Idea Challenge. The theme of this evening was identifying problems.

The night started off with dinner, refreshments, and networking. Shortly after, Ha Pho, Entrepreneurial Initiatives Project Manager, gave an introduction and explained the plan for the evening. She then introduced our two guest speakers for the evening: Faculty Fellows, Professor Mazen El Gaziri, Zuckerburg College of Health Sciences, and Professor Tom Wilkes, Kennedy College of Sciences, who led the session.

Professor El Ghaziri started off the session by showing videos of examples of teams that had well defined problems. This allowed attendees to see how students pitch, and to see how they related their problem to the audience. Then, Professor Wilkes spoke even further about the importance of having a strong problem. A solution cannot be developed with a well defined problem.

Students then broke off into their teams to solidify their problems. After their problems were more defined, they wrote it on easel paper and presented it to the other teams. This allowed teams to give and receive helpful feedback.

We would like to thank everyone that attended the first workshop series session! Another huge thank you to our guest speakers who led the session! We look forward to seeing you at our next sessions:

Workshop Series 2: Assessing Opportunities and Value Proposition, February 20

Workshop Series 3: Developing Business Models, February 24

Workshop Series 4: Delivering Your Rocket Pitch, February 27

All workshops will be held in Lydon Library, Room 110, North Campus from 5:30 – 7:30PM!

Dinner is served at each workshop, so please come hungry! Don’t forget to also keep working hard to prepare for the $50,000 Idea Challenge!

On Tuesday, February 12, from 6-8:30 p.m. at the Saab Center, Perry Atrium, DifferenceMaker held its 7th annual Digital Federal Credit Union/Manning School of Business Innovation Contest Finals.

The event started off with dinner and networking. Sandra Richtermeyer, Dean of the Manning School of Business, opened up the evening with welcoming remarks and judge introductions.

Our judges for the evening were:

Nancy D’Amico – Senior vice president of Technology and Innovation, DCU

Steve Schultz – ’89, ’04, Kennedy College of Sciences and Manning School of Business

Vasilios Roussos – Director of Innovation, DCU

Alana Tobin – ’89, Manning School of Business – Senior Director, Shared Services, Hologic, Inc.

After the judge introductions, each student finalist team pitched their startup ideas. The theme of the event was to come up with innovative solutions to help solve problems related to banking and finance. After each team’s pitch, there was a Q&A by the judges. The teams that pitched were:

Big Flexers / Aiman Baig, Danny Nguyen, Haris Waqar, Abhinav Kiran, and Fazil Soharwardi

Financial Action Manager / Louis Cirignano, David Seybert

SwiftCheck / Valeria Montoya, Jennifer Phan, Veyana Thor

Cash Forward / Jack Disilvio, Oliver Jennings, Pedro Piau

CJZ Statement Analysis / Justin Yee, Christopher Novo, Elijah Li

Each of these teams were awarded $100 per team member for becoming a semi-finalist.

After each team pitched their creative ideas and answered the judges’ questions, the judges stepped out to deliberate the winning team of the evening. While doing so, team members, faculty, students, and family grabbed more food and networked with each other.

At 8 p.m., our judges finished deliberating and announced the winning team for the night: team Cash Forward! Congratulations to team Cash Forward and all teams that made it to the finals and pitched this evening! Cash Forward received $100 per team member for becoming a semi-finalist and $500 per team member for winning 1st place! Their total winning funds equaled $1,800!

Digital Federal Credit Union gave away $3,100 in total funds to the five pitching teams.

Thank you to everyone that attended! Huge thank you for the Digital Federal Credit Union, the Manning School of Business, and the Rist DifferenceMaker Institute for sponsoring this event.

On January 29, 2020, we held our 2020 Rist DifferenceMaker Idea Challenge Kick-Off and Idea Hack at the Saab Center, Perry Atrium from 5:30 – 7 p.m. It was a very eventful night! The space was a full house filled with students, faculty, and mentors.

The event started off with food and networking. Students and faculty were able to speak with one another about their project ideas, catch up with how their semesters are, and meet new people.

Holly Butler, Entrepreneurial Initiatives Program Director, and Steven Tello, Vice Provost, then gave opening remarks to the crowd. They explained the history & process of being a DifferenceMaker, explained the plan of events for the evening, and provided reminders to apply for the Idea Challenge and to join us at the DCU/Manning School of Business Final Competition coming up soon.

Afterwards, real-life DifferenceMaker Teams sat in a panel and answered questions that were moderated by Holly Butler, Entrepreneurial Initiatives Program Director. They spoke about how and why they got involved with DifferenceMaker, how the various workshops & mentors have helped them, and the status their startup projects currently are at. The featured teams who spoke were:

Benji Ball, 2019 Rist Campus-wide DifferenceMaker, Edward Morante, English and Education.

Ambulatory Innovations (formerly known as the CAT MAT), 2019 Honorable Mention, Katie Muise, Health Sciences.

Re-Vive, 2019 Honorable Mention, Alison Mitchell, Engineering.

Ha Pho, Entrepreneurial Initiatives Program Manager, led the Idea Hack activity and discussion. Students wrote the ideas they had on the top of their mind on white paddle boards, and shared them to the crowd. Then, students and faculty worked in teams to solidify the ideas that the students shared earlier.

After the ideas were solidified, one student representative from each team shared their idea to the crowd. This activity gave the students an opportunity to practice their pitching skills and allowed them to get feedback for their ideas.

Thank you to everyone that attended! We hope that you learned something new about DifferenceMaker from this event!

Don’t forget to apply for the 2020 Rist DifferenceMaker $50k Idea Challenge! The deadline is on February 12th.

Interested in hearing student teams pitch? Join us at the DCU/Manning School of Business Innovation Finals this February 11th!

On January 7, 2020, four Rist DifferenceMaker® student teams pitched at DECA. This event took place at Durgin Hall on South Campus at UMass Lowell. DECA prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality and management in high schools and colleges around the globe.

High school students from neighboring schools such as Nashoba Regional High School and Tyngsborough High School, visited the UMass Lowell Campus to pitch their own entrepreneurial start-up projects that they have been working on for months. During the interlude period while the judges were tallying their votes, our Rist DifferenceMaker Teams pitched their current start-up projects and companies.

The four RIST DifferenceMaker teams that pitched were:

ETRA Lock – 2018 DifferenceMaker Idea Challenge, Honorable Mention; a $2,000 prize. ETRA Lock is a RFID device that allow users, mainly individuals with physical limitations, to autonomously lock and unlock their doors by proximity.

Mass Heartbeat –   2018 DifferenceMaker Idea Challenge, Contribution to a Healthier Lifestyle winner; a $4,500 prize. Mass Heartbeat conducts heart screenings that detect underlying conditions that people may not be aware of, and is brought in an affordable manner to schools across Massachusetts

RE-VIVE – 2019 DifferenceMaker Idea Challenge, Honorable Mention; a $2,000 prize. RE-VIVE is a wearable auto-injection system to administer Naloxone to those suffering from a drug overdose.

VotED – 2019 DifferenceMaker Idea Challenge winner, Significant Social Impact winner; a $4,500 prize. VotED is a voter education app that makes learning about current politics simple, fast, and easy.

After all the teams pitched their start-ups, the young entrepreneurs in the audience were asked to vote for their favorite teams using PollEverywhere on their phones. Mass Heartbeat won first place with a top prize of $600, RE-VIVE came in second with a prize of $450, VotED won third and received $250, and ETRALock came in fourth place with a prize of $150.

Congratulations to all teams that pitched! Congratulations to all students that participated in DECA and pitched their own projects earlier that day!

On Wednesday, December 4th, 2019, 24 student teams went to the Saab Center, Perry Atrium, to pitch their prototypes to judges and the public. This was the 6th Annual Francis College of Engineering Prototyping Competition!

From 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., each team demonstrated their working prototype with a three-minute presentation to a panel of preliminary judges. They were judged based on practicality, creativity, market ability, cost-effectiveness, and presentation. This event was also open to the public, where family, student peers, and visitors could also see the pitches and vote for their favorite teams

We would like to extend a big thank you to all of the Preliminary judges:

Doug Browne ’85, Francis College of Engineering

Cindy Conde ’87, ’91, Francis College of Engineering

Steve Geyster ’83, Francis College of Engineering

Paul Makris ’91, Francis College of Engineering

Mike Mulligan ’85, Francis College of Engineering

Rich Rosetti ’83, Francis College of Engineering

Rob Sullivan ’88, ’93, Francis College of Engineering

William (Bill) Perciballi ’85, Francis College of Engineering

From 6 p.m to 7 p.m, the judges deliberated. Three teams were selected by the judges to move to the final round. And, the People’s Choice Award team also moved to the final round.

After the deliberation, the teams that were moving on to the final competition were announced. They presented their proposal to a panel of alumni judges. Each team had ten minutes for their presentations and five minutes for questions. A huge thank you to the final judges:

Rajia Abdelaziz ’16, Francis College of Engineering and Kennedy College of Sciences

Chad LeFrance ’88, Francis College of Engineering

Chris McKenna ’89 Francis College of Engineering

Mark Saab ’81 ’13 (H) Francis College of Engineering

After the presentation pitches, judges went to a separate room to deliberate for who won the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place awards. The People’s Choice Award vote from the individual pitches earlier were also counted.

First prize – $2,500 – Concussion Sensor – A mouth guard with sensor to detect concussion while athletics play in the field.

Second prize – $1,500 – The Smart Safety Outlet – An outlet that interfaces with an app to permit only the authorized person to use electrical appliances in home and workplace.

Third prize – $1,000 – Stand-Assist Belt – A new design of the traditional gait belt to reduce injuries by providing back and under buttock support to assist nurses helping patients to stand.

Med Device prize – $1,500 – The C.A.T. Mat – A physical therapy mat that simulates walking outdoors, helps treat a multitude of patients to improve balance, stability, and other impairments they may have.

Fan favorite – $500 – Use App – An app to help people recycle single use materials.

Honorable mention – team OTDSEES – A device that can assist disable athletes, SCUBA divers, trades people, and homeowners with transferring heavy items, equipment, or people over uneven and rough terrain.

Congratulations to all teams, and thank you to all the judges, audience members, and Francis College of Engineering! If you’re interested in winning additional funding and resources, please apply to the Rist DifferenceMaker $50K Idea Challenge from now until Feb. 12th.

On November 12, 2019, the UMass Lowell innovation community partnered with Johnson and Johnson Innovation to host an event at M2D2 located at the Innovation Hub in downtown Lowell. The event was called – The Promise of the Next Generation of Wearables. RE-VIVE, who won Honorable Mention, a $2,000 award at the 2019 Rist DifferenceMaker Idea Challenge, was chosen to pitch at this exciting event!

Innovations such as the Apple Watch and FitBit, also known as wearable devices, have become one of the trendiest accessories to hit the consumer world. The smart wearable device market is projected to double by 2022.

Steven Tello, Vice Provost for Graduate, Professional and Online Studies, gave welcoming remarks. After the remarks, expert thought leaders in this space, such as Cris De Luca, Global Director of Digital Innovation, and Jeff Champagne, Director of Business Development at MPR Associates, Inc. discussed the true value and definition of “wearables devices” and “smart clothing”.

There were various three minute pitches, presented by startup teams with products related to wearable technology. Alison Michell and Nicholas Lydon, two UMass Lowell seniors studying chemical engineering, pitched their idea for RE-VIVE. RE-VIVE aims to address the opioid epidemic by preventing fatal overdoses. RE-VIVE consists of a wearable auto-injection system to administer Naloxone to those suffering from a drug overdose. This will help decrease the number of fatal overdoses that tragically occur, and hopefully combat the overall epidemic.

There was an expert feedback panel, featuring Stefanie Dhanda, Ibraheem Badejo, and Cris De Luca. Everyone on the panel were Directors from Johnson and Johnson Innovation. After all of the pitches, they voted for their top favorite teams. RE-VIVE came in 2nd place!

Congratulations to RE-VIVE! We’re very proud of their hard work!

On Tuesday, November 19, students from local colleges and universities near the Boston area gathered to the global headquarters of LogMeIn for the largest cross-college pitch off hosted by MIT. Among those schools were students from our district: UMass Lowell and Middlesex Community College!

Representing UMass Lowell was team Ambulatory Innovations, who won Honorable Mention at the 2019 Rist DifferenceMaker Idea Challenge. Michelle Mailloux and Katherine Muise, two graduates in physical therapy in the Zuckerberg College of Health Sciences, are the founders. Michelle pitched their product, the C.A.T. Mat, at the Beantown Throwdown this Tuesday.

C.A.T. Mat (community ambulation tool mat) is an artificial environment simulation tool for patients going through physical therapy. It will simulate walking outdoors, with tiles that have textures such as sand and rocks, to help patients prepare for community ambulation.

The first place winner of the 2019 Beantown Throwdown was UMass Lowell, team Ambulatory Innovations! They received first place against teams from Harvard University, Boston University, MIT, and more.

They were awarded the following prizes:

Entrepreneur Education

· Admission to an upcoming MITEF Cambridge Start Smart class – (1st + 2nd place teams)

· Launchpad Venture Group is offering guest passes for two (2) entrepreneurs to attend one upcoming catalyst event as observers. These events showcase short pitches from 10-12 startups, with networking with investors afterwards. The two team members will be able to watch the pitches and network afterwards – (1st place team)

· Underscore VC will host an expert-lunch/mentoring-session and offer a final round interview to a team they select for their UFirst Summer Accelerator

· A Legal Lunch with MITEF Legal Sponsors

· Net Positive Agency is offering four (4) one-hour digital marketing consulting sessions – (1st + 2nd place teams)

Startup Tools

· One-year team plan subscription to the Disciplined Entrepreneurship Toolbox; a set of tools and checklists to help founders build a healthy and successful startup – (1st + 2nd place teams)

· Access to Google Cloud Startup Program – Spark Package, which includes 20K in credits via MITEF Cambridge partnership –(1st + 2nd place teams)

Incubator Access

· ACTION Innovation Network will provide one hour consultations exploring the greater Boston/New England incubator network. (1st + 2nd place teams)

Other

· Day passes to the Cambridge Innovation Center

· The Canada prize of travel to Montreal at District 3 Innovation Center for a week, Montreal’s leading innovation hub (1st place winner)

· Hamilton Brook Smith Reynolds gift bag

We’re very proud of their hard work and innovative idea!

Representing Middlesex Community College, is team VotEd. Students Michael Dignan, Gillian Inglis, and Olivia Reposa are part of the DifferenceMaker/MCC Partnership. VotEd is a platform that works to give users unbiased knowledge about their rights to vote. They won the DifferenceMaker prize for Significant Social Impact in 2019.

We are so proud of our DifferenceMaker student teams that pitched at Beantown this year!

Read about the Beantown Throwdown press release here.